


Quiet Times

by hellostarlight20



Series: Pushing Boundaries [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Nightmares, Sex of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 08:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10659006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: John’s nightmares plague him but they may also be the push he needs to ask Rose to marry him.





	Quiet Times

**Author's Note:**

> This is the next (but apparently not last!) story in the Pushing Boundaries verse. Thank Mrs. Bertucci for the beta AND the apparently next story. She’s an enabler! Evil wench. ;-)  
> Rated M for a non-kink sex scene (I know!)  
> Rated A for angst  
> Rated F for fluffy goodness

In the dark room, long before the sun rose, he stood by the window. The shadows surrounded him—old friends where he safely hid from the world and its knowing stare. Or enemies, smothering him in a false sense of anonymity, crushing him until he couldn’t breathe. John Noble didn’t know.

Rose sighed in her sleep and turned toward his side of the bed. Reaching for him. Searching for him. Her hair fanned out behind her, a tangled mess. In the darkness of the bedroom, John couldn’t tell the color, but knew her shade of honey blonde better than he knew his own hair color.

She burrowed beneath the covers, half on his pillows. The cold morning seeped into his bones, but he ignored the chill. Letting the curtains drop and once more mask the bedroom in darkness, he silently crossed the floorboards and returned to their bed, gently easing in beside her. She woke just enough to look up at him in the dim pre-dawn light.

“John?”

“Go back to sleep, Rose.” He slid in beside her and held her close.

“What’s wrong?” She shivered when her feet met his colder ones, but didn’t back away.

Something warm and knowing settled around his heart.

“Nothing.” He kissed the top of her head and rested his against the pillows, allowing his eyes to close despite the residual images burned there.

She snorted, a disbelieving breath of air against his chest, and propped herself up on one elbow. Neither reached for the lamps, but he saw her clearly. Knew her so well he reached up and smoothed the line between her brows, kissing her softly.

“What’s wrong?” she repeated.

“Just a dream,” he said and combed his fingers through her hair, mindful of the knots. “I’m fine now.”

Rose lay back down, head resting on his chest. He ran his hand down her back and the thin satin of her nighty caught on his rough fingers. She was so soft, so delicate, yet fiercely strong and independent—a contradiction that pulled him in time and again.

“I love you,” he whispered into the night.

She smiled against his naked chest and pressed a kiss to his skin, letting her warm lips stay on his still-chilled body. He pulled her closer, the lingering fear of his nightmare clinging to his skin.

“I never thought I’d feel this way about anyone,” she confessed. “Meeting you on that train.” She shrugged, a small restless move that only brought her body closer to his. “It might’ve started as an experiment, as only sex, but it—”

Once more she stopped and John opened his eyes to meet hers. He tried to grin, but his lips felt stiff and unresponsive and all he could do was pull her closer, feel the slide of her nighty along his naked chest, her bare legs tangle with his, her hips press to his boxers-clad thighs.

“I don’t know when I fell in love with you, Doctor Noble, but I’m so glad we met.”

John closed his eyes on the rush of emotion suddenly closing his throat. “Rose.” He kissed her, pouring every ounce of passion and love and physical need for this beautiful woman into that kiss. “I love you.”

“Tell me about your nightmare.” Her voice was breathless, but her tone calming. Encouraging. “You know you can tell me anything.”

He didn’t want to. The last thing he wanted was to burden her with his nightmarish memories. But her hand splayed over his heart and she looked down at him, patient and quiet, waiting for him to talk.

“We were in the desert—I don’t know where, it wasn’t familiar. I’m not even sure it was a real memory so much as—” he cleared his throat. Fear clawed though him, vicious and cold. “I couldn’t find you. I knew you were there but I couldn’t—you didn’t answer. No matter how I searched, you didn’t answer and I couldn’t—I couldn’t—”

“John.” Rose grabbed his hand and held it. The feel of so simple a gesture grounded him and the band tightening his chest eased. “I’m here. It was a nightmare. I’m here with you, in our bed, in our flat. I’m here,” she repeated, “and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah.” He sucked in a breath. “Rose.”

“Shh,” she soothed.

For long moments, she held him while his heart stopped trying to beat itself out of his chest and his breath no longer came in thin gasps of air. John didn’t know how they changed positions, his head now on her chest, her hands soothing down his back, through is hair. A gentle touch like butterfly wings, but far more real and permanent than any butterfly.

“I’m here,” she repeated.

“Rose.” He finally blinked, the image of her bloody, broken body no longer the only thing he could see.

Instead he saw this scene, the intimate closeness of her holding him, of her caring for him. The still, inky night where only the two of them existed and nothing else penetrated their cocoon of intimate warmth.

He’d never loved her more.

Pushing himself onto his elbows, he looked down at her in the darkness of their bedroom, the only illumination his old digital clock and the single red light from the telly on the opposite wall. Not enough to stab their quiet tenderness.

“I’m not leaving you, John,” she vowed and the fierceness in those words settled over him like a balm.

“Marry me.”

Even in the darkness, he saw her eyes widen in shock. “What?”

“I was going to wait until we went to Paris next week.” He pushed himself up and shook his head at his own impatience. “Rubbish timing, me. I wanted to do it right, ask you in front of the Eiffel Tower where a hundred strangers watched.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know why you’re with me Rose, or how you love a broken man like me.” He rolled to the side and reached for the bedside table, easily finding the ring box he put there weeks ago. “But I don’t want to live without you.”

“Yes.”

He turned for her again, his carefully rehearsed proposal laid out before him, the words he agonized over—how much he loved her, how much he needed her, how much he wanted her. In any position.

John had hoped to make her laugh, to see her smile. He wouldn’t beg her; if Rose said no he wasn’t sure what he’d do, but he refused to beg no matter what it looked like, old, daft him on one knee holding his heart as well as the ring up to her in quiet supplication.

“Yes.”

“I—what?”

“John, you daft man.”

Suddenly his arms were full of Rose Tyler kissing him. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, never one to turn down a Rose kiss.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Oh, John.” Rose framed his face with her hands, nose brushing his.

Before meeting her—well, before falling in love with her—John never would’ve even thought about brushing noses. It was stupid, cheesy romance movie rubbish. Noses were for breathing or sneezing, not for a gentle touch from a loved one.

With Rose it was softly intimate, a familiar affection to his lover, his love, he never realized he needed until her.

“I love you, you daft man. I moved in with you, I—” her voice wobbled. “I’d go anywhere with you. Don’t you know that? I said I’d never leave you and that wasn’t me being kinky or staying for the sex.” She pressed her lips to his and sighed into the kiss. “Even sex, as fantastic as it is between us, isn’t enough to make me stay.”

John shuddered and remembered that week. That nightmarish, horrible week where he hadn’t talked to her, hadn’t held her, hadn’t kissed her. Hadn’t seen her no matter how desperately he searched the crowded streets of Oxford in a frantic attempt to find her.

He remembered that week in grey—desolate, dreary, an expanse of isolation closing in on him with every breath. Even Tom—Tim—what-the-hell-ever that boy’s name was had noticed and somehow worked up the nerve to ask if he was all right.

John purposely didn’t remember the exact words he snarled at the kid, but he did remember storming out of the building.

“I don’t want to live without you,” John admitted.

“You won’t,” Rose promised. “I’ll stay with you forever.”

He slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her.

John might’ve felt a tear on her cheek, but Rose wound her arms around his neck and pulled him close. He hadn’t wanted to make her cry, he never wanted Rose to cry. But her warm body pressed to his and he slid his hands up her thighs.

She tugged his boxers down, nails skimming his cock. John shuddered at her touch, desperate to feel her around him, to lose himself in her heat, in her love.

Rose straddled his hips, fingers stroking him to full hardness. John wanted to take his time, to taste her and hear her cries shatter the still night. Instead he slid his fingers into her, coaxing her body, feeling her shudder around him.

“John.”

“Are you ready, Rose?” He circled her clit, heard her breath hitch and knew she was close.

“Yeah,” she breathed and guided him into her. “I love you.”

John thrust up then rolled them, hiking Rose’s legs high on his waist. “I don’t have the words to tell you how much I love you.” His thrusts were shallow, steady, his control tight in his fists even as he cupped Rose’s face in his hands, as gentle as a breeze. “Every day I discover something new about you.”

Rose choked out a laugh, caught between a sob and pleasure. “How is that possible? You already know everything about me.”

“Maybe, but I love that, too.” John kissed her hungrily, his shoulders relaxing even as he thrust harder into her. His muscles uncoiling from one tension and eagerly embracing another, the clawing hunger he had for this amazing woman.

“Make love to me, John.”

“Every day.”

It wasn’t gentle, though he’d have liked that. Wanted to show Rose how precious she was to him as he brought her to orgasm again and again. But she raked her nails down his back and cupped his arse, teeth sinking into his shoulder. Her orgasm broke over her, and she cried out, back bowing as her hips ground against his.

“John,” she sobbed.

“I’m here, love.” He pounded into her, his own control shattered, his own climax rushing up his spine. “I’m here.”

Rose held him as he came, fingers soft on his back, gently tracing the welts she left. She kissed him, legs locked around his hips, holding him close.

“I’m here,” she repeated, “I’ll always be here with you.”

“I don’t know why you’re with me,” he admitted, heart still hammering in his chest. He rolled off Rose—his fiancée—and flopped next to her. One hand automatically reached for hers, physically incapable of not touching her. “I don’t know what you ever saw in me that made you stay.”

“You’re a brilliant, caring man, John Noble.” She hovered above him and brushed her fingertips over his forehead. “You’ve shown me parts of myself I never knew existed—or never wanted to acknowledge existed.”

She kissed him gently and John felt her grin against his lips. “And you showed me a relationship didn’t need to be boring to be considered stable. You took my hand and every day is an adventure whether we’re trying a new kink or we’re exploring hidden Oxford.”

He snorted but gathered her close. He should probably let her out of bed, clean her up, but hadn’t the willpower to let her go. Not yet.

“I’ll show you everything you want to see, Rose Tyler. Just—” he broke off, fingers flexing on her waist, around her hand. “Don’t leave me,” he begged.

“Never.” She laughed and kissed him soundly before rolling out of bed. “Stuck with me you are! You already proposed—no backing out now!”

Rose’s laughter echoed from the still dark bathroom and John felt himself grinning with her. He was going to marry her. Rose agreed to marry him. Oh, he wasn’t foolish enough to think that marrying Rose would ease his nightmares or ease any of his guilt, but…Rose agreed to marry him!

For the rest of their lives, he’d have her hand to hold when his past closed in on him and her love to ease him through the worst of his memories. 

It was only the next morning, when she showered while he made breakfast, that Rose finally saw her ring. The titanium band was slightly thicker than she expected; in the center of an infinity symbol lay cradled a pair of brilliant sapphires. Naked, she ran into the kitchen and snogged him to within an inch of his life.

“I love it,” she breathed against his lips, body pressing his to the counter. “But I still love you more.”

John laughed, the demons of the previous night banished in the wake of Rose’s laughter, the sunshine she brought with her. He slipped his hands to her arse and pulled her flush against him. Her breath caught and she rocked her hips against his.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Doctor Noble.”

He nipped her pouty lower lip and growled. “Don’t tempt me, Ms. Tyler.”

Rose sniffed. “You’re talking to the future Mrs. Noble.”

John pulled back and grinned goofily at her. “So I am.” He squeezed her arse anyway. “Doesn’t change the fact.”

“Catch me if you can.” Rose pecked a kiss on his lips and ran into the bedroom, her laughter trailing behind her.

John raced after her.


End file.
